Race-Hustling Results

Years ago, someone said that, according to the laws of aerodynamics, bumblebees cannot fly. But the bumblebees, not knowing the laws of aerodynamics, go ahead and fly anyway.

Something like that happens among people. There have been many ponderous academic writings and dour editorials in the mainstream media, lamenting that most people born poor cannot rise in American society any more. Meanwhile, many poor immigrants arrive here from various parts of Asia, and rise on up the ladder anyway.

Often these Asian immigrants arrive not only with very little money, but also very little knowledge of English. They start out working at low-paid jobs but working so many hours, often at more than one job, that they are able to put a little money aside.

After a few years, they have enough money to open some little shop, where they still work long hours, and still save their money, so that they can afford to send their children to college. Meanwhile, these children know that their parents not only expect, but demand, that they make good grades.

Some people try to explain why Asians, and Asian-Americans, succeed so well in education and in the economy by some special characteristics that they have. That may be true, but their success may also be due to what they do not have -- namely "leaders" who tell them that the deck is so stacked against them that they cannot rise, or at least not without depending on "leaders."

Such "leaders" are like the people who said that the laws of aerodynamics showed that the bumblebee cannot fly. Those who have believed such "leaders" have in fact stayed grounded, unlike the bumblebees.

A painful moment for me, years ago, when I was on the lecture circuit, came after a talk at Marquette University, when a young black student rose and asked: "Even though I am graduating from Marquette University, what hope is there for me?"

Back in the 1950s, when I was a student, I never encountered any fellow black student who expressed such hopelessness, even though there was far more racial discrimination then. We knew that there were obstacles for us to overcome, and we intended to overcome them.

The memory of that Marquette student came back to me, years later, when another black young man said that he had wanted to become a pilot, and had even planned to join the Air Force in order to do so. But then, he said, he now "realized" that "The Man" would never allow a black guy to become a pilot.

This was said decades after a whole squadron of black fighter plane pilots made a reputation for themselves in World War II, as the "Tuskegee Airmen." There have been black generals in the Air Force.